The Trend in

UNIVERSITY OF WASHINGTON COLLEGE OF ENGINEERING NEWSLETTER SPRING 2018

Meet EMAR, a robot being developed to better understand teen stress Pages 4-5 FROM THE DEAN

Celebrating state support FACULTY HONORS and student success Maya Cakmak, assistant professor in the Paul G. Allen School of Computer Greetings! I’m excited to open this issue with good news from Science & Engineering, and Arka the 2018 state legislative session: The College received $600,000 Majumdar, assistant professor of in capital funds for pre-design of a new multidisciplinary electrical engineering and physics, engineering building. And, the Paul G. Allen School of Computer received Sloan Research Fellowships. Science & Engineering received $3 million to complete a goal of doubling the number of computer science degrees from 300 to Amazon Professor of Machine Learning 600 annually. This is a significant development that allows us to Emily B. Fox, an associate professor continue to pursue growth plans to meet student and industry in the Allen School and of statistics, demand. We appreciate the state’s partnership and investment. received a Presidential Early Career Last year, we featured a story about a new Direct to College (DTC) Award for Scientists and Engineers. freshman admission process. I’m pleased to share that DTC offers professor went out for the class of 2022 in March. We expect to have Dayong Gao and Anthony Waas, over 700 students in the inaugural cohort and professor and Boeing-Egtvedt Endowed are busy preparing for their integration into the Chair of Aeronautics & Astronautics, engineering community. Prior to arriving on were elected to the Washington State campus, students will be paired with an Academy of Sciences. engineering adviser and peer mentor to help James Riley, PACCAR Endowed guide them through their first year. The first- Professor of Mechanical Engineering, year program is designed to encourage was named as an American Association exploration of engineering majors, build for the Advancement of Science fellow. community and provide unique educational and leadership opportunities. Bioengineering professor Paul Yager was elected as a National Academy of As student interest in STEM soars, so does Inventors Fellow. attendance at Engineering Discovery Days, a two-day event held in April. This year we hosted over 10,000 elementary, middle and high school students on campus and introduced them to the exciting field of engineering. Discovery Days is a terrific experience for our state’s K-12 students and is a valuable educational experience for our engineering students who are key to the event’s success. Our students design and host exhibits and activities that range from the ever popular “Walk on Water” to the sold-out “Glowing Pickle.” If you haven’t experienced Discovery Days, I hope you’ll consider joining us in the future.

Mike Bragg Frank & Julie Jungers Dean of Engineering

PAGE 2 The TREND Spring 2018 COLLEGE NEWS

AR / VR innovation Small scale, big impact The UW Reality Lab will develop next- The Institute for Nano-Engineered Systems generation augmented and virtual reality (NanoES) brings together nanoscale science and technologies and educate an industry engineering researchers with industry partners workforce. and entrepreneurs.

The UW has launched a new augmented and virtual Housed in a new, multimillion-dollar facility on campus, the reality research center — funded by Facebook, Google NanoES Institute will pursue impactful advancements in a variety and Huawei — to accelerate innovation and educate of disciplines — energy, materials science, computation and the next generation of researchers and practitioners. medicine — at a technological scale a thousand times smaller The $6 million UW Reality Lab, funded with equal than the width of a human hair. contributions from the three sponsors, creates one “The UW is well known for its expertise in nanoscale materials, of the world’s first academic centers dedicated to processing, physics and biology — as well as its cutting-edge virtual and augmented reality. The new center in nanofabrication, characterization and testing facilities,” said Karl the Paul G. Allen School of Computer Science & Böhringer, director of the new institute and a professor of electrical Engineering will support research and education engineering and bioengineering. “NanoES will build on these initiatives with potential to deliver game-changing strengths, bringing together people, tools and opportunities to breakthroughs in the field. develop nanoscale devices and systems.” “Allen School faculty have produced pioneering The institute’s unique approach to innovation and industry research in many of the areas that underpin AR and collaboration will hasten the development of solutions to the field’s VR technologies, including computer vision, graphics, most pressing challenges: the manufacturing of scalable, high- perception and machine learning,” said Hank Levy, yield nano-engineered systems for applications in information Allen School director and Wissner-Slivka Chair in processing, energy, health and interconnected life. Computer Science & Engineering. The institute’s centerpiece is its headquarters, the Nano Engineering “Through our partnership with Facebook, Google and Sciences Building, which houses 90,300 square feet of and Huawei, the Allen School and UW will be at the research and learning space and was funded largely by the College forefront of the next great wave of AR and VR of Engineering and Sound Transit. In addition to featuring dynamic innovation — pursuing breakthrough research and classroom and laboratory space, the building’s location and design educating the next generation of innovators in this elements are intended to limit vibrations and electromagnetic exciting and rapidly expanding field,” he added. interference so it can house sensitive experiments.

The TREND Spring 2018 PAGE 3 “How many of you feel stressed at school?” When Elin Björling asks a group of Seattle high school students this question, every hand shoots in the air. Björling, a human centered design and engineering (HCDE) research scientist who studies teen stress, is not surprised. “Teens experience stress more so than any other age group, and that stress can negatively impact their mental TheA intersection ROBOT of engineering and physical health,” she says. and neuroscience promises Yet when it comes to stress research, more studies are needed to confidant understand vulnerable adolescents. According to Björling, researchers great advances in health care. lack quality data to understand how, when and why stress occurs in teens TheMeet UW is establishingEMAR, a itselfrobot or what normal, healthy stress looks like. as a global leader in the field Enter EMAR (Ecological Momentary Assessment Robot), a friendly little spurredbeing on developedby the College by robot being developed by UW researchers with big hopes of disrupting this data void. Björling is leading this research team with UW Tacoma of Engineering’sUW researchers significant to Interdisciplinary Arts & Sciences assistant professor and HCDE alumna investments in faculty and Emma Rose, ‘11 PhD, and Maya Cakmak, an assistant professor in the cutting-edgebetter understand research. teen Paul G. Allen School of Computer Science & Engineering. Known as Project EMAR, their team is creating a social robot that will help stress and emotional schools better measure stress. Their goal is to design a robot that would live in a high school and collect data on students’ emotional well-being. well-being. The project is supported by the National Science Foundation’s National Investing in innovation: UWRobotics advances Initiative. the future of neural engineering By Chelsea Yates Why use a robot? Although there is a great deal of research on human-robot interaction, including focused studies on specific age groups like children and seniors, little exists on teen-robot interaction. EMAR’s researchers see this as an opportunity. “Today’s teens will likely be the first generation to spend a lifetime interacting with robots,” explains HCDE junior Wesley Muthemba. “So in addition to gathering important data related to stress, our project will help fill in some human-robot interaction research gaps, which is exciting.” Muthemba is one of approximately 30 students who have helped shape Project EMAR through independent studies and directed research groups. Students from across the College of Engineering, the Information School and UW Tacoma have participated in all stages of research, design and robot prototyping. The team is designing EMAR to use a research methodology called Ecological Momentary Assessment to gather real-time data. “The team realized early on that if we’re going to ask teens to share real-time feedback, we needed to provide them with a cool, interesting way to do so,” says Muthemba. “So why not give them a social robot to interact with?”

PAGE 4 PAGE 4 The TREND Spring 2018 Investing in innovation: UW advances the future of neural engineering

Cute, not creepy the questions we’re exploring right now,” says Rose. To ensure that high school students will feel comfortable The researchers have also learned that students are curious engaging with EMAR, the team has held multiple user- about EMAR’s race and gender. focused sessions with teens. “It never crossed our minds to design for race or gender, “High school wasn’t that long ago for me, and I thought I but it’s been interesting to observe how soon students want had a good idea of how teens would respond to EMAR,” to know if EMAR is a boy or a girl,” says Björling. “This has says HCDE junior Rachel Ren, the project’s undergraduate prompted us to think about how race and gender are research assistant. “But one of the first things we learn in communicated and, as designers, how mindful we need to HCDE is to let go of our assumptions and listen objectively, be about our roles in that process.” and I’m glad we’ve taken this approach because we’ve learned so much!” Potential for impact For example, the team discovered that the students over- Using a robot to collect information about students raises whelmingly preferred simple, approachable robot designs privacy concerns. To address this, the data will be collected to sophisticated models, which could seem intimidating. and stored anonymously. “Over and again, we’ve been told that EMAR has to be “EMAR is an assessment tool,” explains Björling. “It isn’t cute, not creepy,” says Rose. intended to single out specific individuals but to compile and aggregate data that schools can use to better Based on teen input, the team has created two robot understand their student body as a whole.” prototypes and is working on two more. EMAR’s first iteration, a squatty, boxy robot, has large round static Keep up with EMAR at blogs.uw.edu/emar eyes and a simple, hand-drawn smile. The second is taller with dynamic, digitally responsive eyes. Both feature a School administrators and teachers will be able to use touch screen for information gathering. EMAR’s data to determine ways to implement change — Teens also reported a desire to know that EMAR cares introduce new after-school programs, host wellness events, about them. To convey awareness and expression, increase counseling services, reduce students’ academic researchers have scripted EMAR’s eyes to move and workload — and measure the effectiveness of their blink. They’ve also programmed EMAR to respond interventions. The data can also help teens develop more verbally to teen input and are exploring the best types self-awareness and a deeper understanding of their of verbal responses for it deliver. school environment. “Do students want EMAR to suggest solutions that might “EMAR will serve as a good reminder for teens to take a help them feel better, or do they just want to be heard? minute and pay attention to their stress, to talk to their What should EMAR’s voice sound like? These are some of friends or a counselor about it,” Björling adds.

The TREND Spring 2018 PAGE 5 Rooted in engineering

A Washington wine industry pioneer, alumnus Jim Holmes shares how he established a world- renowned vineyard Spanning 120 acres on Washington’s Red Mountain, Ciel du Cheval Vineyard is Investingthanks to inengineering. innovation: UWconsidered advances one of the state’s the first future and finest of vineyards. neural Since engineering1975, Ciel has provided grapes to some of Washington’s most respected wineries — DeLille By Chelsea Yates Cellars, Mark Ryan, Andrew Will and Cadence, to name a few. Ciel represents more than 40 years of alumnus Jim Holmes’s passion, determination and commitment to innovation. Holmes, who received his master’s degree in materials science and engineering (MSE) in 1962, has owned and operated the vineyard since its inception. And, he says, it wouldn’t exist were it not for UW Engineering. We recently spoke with Holmes about how his engineering background has been integral to his vineyard’s success.

Why did you decide to pursue a master’s degree in MSE at the UW? My family had always been interested in rock collecting, which led to my interest in metallurgical engineering and materials science. After graduating in 1959 with an engineering degree from the University of California, Berkeley, I accepted a job at Hanford. It was an exciting place to be for young engineers; there was a worldwide quest to develop nuclear power as an inexpensive energy source, and much of that work was happening at Hanford. My research team was investigating how structural materials behave in a reactor. I wanted to gain more knowledge of the fundamentals of material behavior, so I decided to pursue a master’s degree. It was a wonderful time to do so. The MSE department was transitioning its focus from traditional industrial approaches to emerging technologies in engineering research. The faculty members were young, smart, full of ideas and eager to collaborate with students. The grad student community was superb; we were very supportive of each other.

How did you become interested in wine? I grew up in Northern California surrounded by good wine, so I just assumed that you could get good wine wherever you went. That was not the case in Washington in the early 1960s. Whenever I went home to California, I’d stock up on wine to share with my Hanford research partner and fellow engineer, John Williams. We developed a serious interest in wine but didn’t really have any way to channel it until the early 1970s.

PAGE 6 The TREND Spring 2018 What happened then? In 1972, John and I invested in some land for commercial purposes and bought 80 acres on Red Mountain. We had no plans to farm it. It was all desert. No one tried to grow anything there. But we’d been following the work of Walter Clore at Washington State University’s Irrigated Agriculture Research Extension Center. He believed — and demonstrated — that under the right conditions certain types of grapevines could be grown in central Washington. Following his lead, around 1975 we decided to plant a few on our land. Wow, was it a good thing we were engineers! There was no water source, electricity or roads on our property, so You and your wife Patricia have been advocates for we got to work at what turned out to be a big engineering engineering students through your support of MSE project: transforming our desert into farmable land. We graduate students and programs like the Capstone didn’t have money to hire people so we did all the work Fund. Why do you stay connected to the UW? ourselves — cleared the land, conducted a geological The engineering fundamentals I learned at the UW have analysis to determine where to look for water below provided the backbone for nearly everything at Ciel. I’m ground, brought power in from across the Yakima River, proud of the vineyard, and I’m proud to say that I can established our own irrigation system, did all our own trace it all back to my engineering studies. I hope that the calculations. At first our families thought we were nuts. students we support will one day be able to look back on But then vines started growing and producing grapes. Investing in innovation: UW advances the future of neural engineering their time at the UW in a similar way. What was it like being an engineer by day and a We find it very satisfying to support young people viticulturist in your spare time? interested in engineering research. We are continually Those two identities have always been intertwined for me impressed by the intellectual talent that we see in today’s since my interest in wine and grape growing developed students. There is so much curiosity and drive to explore in parallel to my engineering career. When I retired from and try new things! It’s very inspiring. Hanford in 1994, I was ready to devote myself — and my engineering skills — fully to Ciel. Learn more about Holmes’s vineyard at cielducheval.com Down to the soil, Ciel is rooted in science and engineering. The Husky experience is also a shared experience in our Over the years we’ve developed an extensive network of family. Our three sons are all UW alums with degrees sensors to monitor soil moisture. We regularly evaluate in economics, education and political science. My son and analyze plant and soil samples for nutrients. All of this Richard recently started producing wine from our grapes has allowed us to continuously experiment, learn about under the label Côtes de Ciel. So, in a way, I guess you the land in detail and better understand our soil’s could say that the UW has been with us at every stage of unique composition. our work — from the first planting to the latest pouring.

The TREND Spring 2018 PAGE 7 STUDENT EXPERIENCE

PASSION-DRIVEN ENGINEERING WOOF 3-D introduces campus and community partners to 3-D printing’s potential.

Undergraduates involved in WOOF 3-D — a student club of broken and missing parts to complete a B-29 airplane for housed in the mechanical engineering (ME) department — exhibition. A few students are collaborating with museum believe in 3-D printing’s potential for impact across staff to 3-D scan and print small-scale replicas of aircraft all disciplines. and other artifacts for vision-impaired visitors to hold and “3-D printing is an incredibly accessible but underused feel on the museum’s guided “Touch the Sky” sensory tours. technology that can be applied to any field,” ME senior and WOOF club officer Casi Goodman says. “One of our main Follow the club at woof3D.net goals in WOOF is to help others understand its value and how it can enhance their work.” Assisting the Burke Museum with collection To do so, the club has taken on several projects with display and study campus and community organizations, including: Since 2015, WOOF has collaborated with the Burke Museum of Natural History and Culture to 3-D scan and print replica Enhancing the Museum of Flight bones to complete a Columbian Mammoth skeleton for visitor experience exhibition when the museum’s new building opens in 2019. Club members are exploring how to replicate the museum’s Club members have also started investigating how to 3-D moon rock so that visitors can touch the replica to print in bronze a replica of a tooth from the Tyrannosaurus understand how the real moon rock feels, since handling the Rex skeleton unearthed by Burke paleontologists in 2016. original is not permitted. They are also 3-D printing replicas Additionally, they are working with curator Sharlene Santana,

PAGE 8 The TREND Spring 2018 who researches how and what bats eat by examining their skulls and jawbones, to Innovations in health care 3-D print enlarged replicas of bat skulls for better study. Engineering student teams sweep the 2018 Hollomon Health Innovation Challenge. 3-D printing medical training materials with UW CREST Student engineers and entrepreneurs dazzled at the 2018 Hollomon Club members are partnering with UW Health Innovation Challenge, hosted by the UW Foster School’s Buerk Medicine’s Center for Research in Education Center for Entrepreneurship. Innovative prototypes and solutions to and Simulation Technologies (CREST) today’s health-care problems were on display from twenty-two teams to develop a mold for a synthetic human of college students — prompting many judges to call this year’s heart from biosynthetic material based on competition “the best one yet.” medical scan data from real human hearts. The $15,000 Hollomon Family grand prize went to A-Alpha Bio, a team When finished, they will start on a detailed of bioengineering doctoral students and recent graduates. A-Alpha replica cross-section of a human arm — Bio developed an AlphaSeq technology, which improves clinical trial complete with synthetic skin, bones, success rates by helping pharmaceutical companies fully characterize tendons and arteries. their drug candidates in the pre-clinical stage. It’s not common for student clubs to be The $10,000 Herbert B. Jones Foundation second place prize went to committed to as many partner projects as OLA Simple. The team of bioengineering and electrical engineering WOOF is, and while that has presented graduate students developed a point-of-care technology platform that aims to revolutionize the diagnostics, predictive outcomes and targeted therapy for genetic disorders and conditions. The Fenwick & West $5,000 third place prize was given to ACBI (Automated Continuous Bladder Irrigation). The team of mechanical engineering and electrical engineering students created a device that makes continuous bladder irrigation treatment less time intensive and expensive, while reducing the risk of complications for patients. Nanodropper, a team of pharmacology, bioengineering and business students, received one of the competition’s three “Judges Also Really Liked” awards. They created an affordable, universal eye drop adaptor that aims to reduce the cost, waste and side effects frequently associated with expensive prescription eye medications.

some challenges, it’s also allowed for some unique opportunities. “In WOOF we like to think of what we do as ‘passion-driven engineering’,” says Goodman. “We’re passionate about 3-D printing and the more we can share that passion with others, the better.”

The TREND Spring 2018 PAGE 9 OUTREACH INSPIRING FUTURE ENGINEERS As Clean Energy Institute outreach ambassador, Gabriella Tosado encourages K-12 students statewide to pursue engineering and science.

Gabriella Tosado has melded her interests in sustainable it can be printed on flexible materials. There’s hope that it engineering and community involvement through the UW may soon become a cheap, efficient, high performing Clean Energy Institute (CEI), where she’s been coordinating alternative to conventional — and expensive — silicon solar K-12 outreach programs while pursuing a dual Ph.D. in cells. But in its current state, it’s too unstable. We want to chemical engineering (ChemE) and nanotechnology and stabilize it so that it can be commercialized, ultimately molecular engineering. making solar energy more accessible and affordable. Why did you decide to study at the UW? Tell us about your CEI outreach work. I’m from Miami, Florida, where climate change isn’t just real; I travel across Washington to teach K-12 students about clean it’s personal. My hometown is seriously threatened by rising energy and encourage them to consider going to college to sea levels. I want to do my part to develop solutions to help study STEM. I’m proud to say that we’ve reached more than fight climate change and encourage young people — our 40,000 students statewide to date. next generation of engineers and scientists — to do the same. I’m especially interested in encouraging underrepresented When I visited Seattle to check out UW’s ChemE program, students to pursue STEM. We need dynamic solutions in STEM, I discovered CEI, which is working to advance clean energy and the only way to get them is to diversify the field. The more technologies through solar energy, battery and grid difference, the more opportunity to develop and implement research. I decided that UW was the place for me when I new ideas. realized that I could get in on the ground floor of CEI’s It’s important for girls and students of color to see women innovative work. and people of color in STEM. I didn’t have any women mentors What are you researching? in science to look up to when I was a kid. So I carved my own I’m working in ChemE professor Qiuming Yu’s lab to develop path. It would have been meaningful to have someone to and stabilize perovskite solar cells. Perovskite is an exciting look to and say, “She did this; I can do this, too.” I’m now in a material that’s pretty new to the solar world. Its unique position where I can be that person for someone else, and crystal makeup gives it a lot of interesting properties, and that’s really motivating.

PAGE 10 The TREND Spring 2018 RESEARCH

#MemoriesInDNA UW and Microsoft researchers want to store your photos in DNA for the benefit of science — and future generations.

Researchers from the UW’s Molecular Information Systems Lab and Microsoft are collecting images to preserve indefinitely in synthetic DNA manufactured by Twist Bioscience. Known as #MemoriesInDNA, the project invites the public to submit original photographs to encode in synthetic DNA and make available to researchers worldwide. Contributors are also encouraged to share images on social media with the hashtag #MemoriesInDNA. “We want people to submit something that PLASTIC COMMUNICATION they want the world to remember,” said Luis Ceze, professor in the Paul G. Allen School Imagine a laundry detergent bottle that can of Computer Science & Engineering. “It’s sense when you’re running low on soap — a fun opportunity to send a message to future generations and help our research and automatically connect to the internet to in the process.” order more.

Submit your photos at memoriesindna.com UW researchers have become the first to 3-D print plastic objects and DNA promises to be a revolutionary storage sensors that can collect data and communicate with other WiFi-connected medium that lasts longer and is many devices entirely on their own. orders of magnitude denser than current With CAD models that the team is making publicly available, 3-D printing technologies. Currently the research team enthusiasts will be able to create objects out of plastics that can wirelessly holds the world record for the amount of communicate with other smart devices. That could include a battery-free data stored in DNA. They have already slider that controls music volume, a button that automatically orders more encoded important compositions in DNA cornflakes from Amazon or a water sensor that sends an alarm to your molecules, including The Universal phone when it detects a leak. Declaration of Human Rights, the top 100 To 3-D print objects that can communicate with commercial WiFi receivers, books of Project Gutenberg and songs from the team employed backscatter techniques that allow devices to exchange the Montreux Jazz Festival. information. They replaced some functions normally performed by electrical The researchers are already able to retrieve components with mechanical motion activated by springs, gears, switches and convert individual molecular “files” of and other parts that can be 3-D printed — borrowing from principles that images and video back into digital data. allow battery-free watches to keep time. Their next challenge will be to perform “Our goal was to create something for your 3-D home printers that can send data processing directly in DNA without useful information to other devices,” said electrical engineering doctoral converting the images back into their student Vikram Iyer. “But the big challenge is how do you communicate original form. wirelessly with WiFi using only plastic? That’s something that no one has been able to do before.”

The TREND Spring 2018 PAGE 11 371 Loew Hall, Box 352180 Seattle, Washington 98195-2180

Michael B. Bragg, PhD Frank & Julie Jungers Dean of Engineering Judy Mahoney Associate Dean of Advancement Heather Hoeksema Senior Director of Communications Chelsea Yates Assistant Director of Publications Jennifer Langston Charles Trillingham Contributing Writers Mary Macenka Graphic Design Send address corrections or comments to: [email protected] attn: Editor

Read online at engr.uw.edu/news/trend Follow us at facebook.com/UWEngineering Find us on Twitter @uwengineering

Thursday, May 10, 2018, 6-9 PM, Husky Union Building, UW campus

Please join the College of Engineering as we honor six alumni and Aaron Feaver, ’07 PhD, Materials Science & Engineering friends for their outstanding achievements. Entrepreneurial Excellence As CTO of EnerG2, Aaron Feaver led the development of new Dennis Muilenburg, ’90 MS, Aeronautics & Astronautics low-carbon dioxide energy sources and renewable energy; today, Dean’s Award EnerG2’s technology is the single largest contributor to energy Since joining The Boeing Company in 1985, Dennis Muilenburg storage globally. has served as the president, chief executive officer and chairman, making an indelible mark on the company and the broader Irene Peden aerospace community. Distinguished Service As UW Engineering’s first female faculty member, Irene Pedenspent Jud Virden, ’83 BS, ’91 PhD, Chemical Engineering close to 60 years opening doors for female engineers and serving as Distinguished Achievement in Industry an advocate for expanding the engineering education pipeline. As the associate laboratory director of the PNNL Energy & Environment Directorate, Jud Virden leads innovations in clean Kurtis Heimerl, ’07 BS, Computer Science & Engineering technology and global public-private partnerships that address Early Career complex energy and environmental challenges. Kurtis Heimerl’s research is revolutionizing community cellular networks through the development of low-power, small-scale Tami Bond, ’93 BS, Mechanical Engineering, ’00 PhD, networks in rural and low-income regions to address the global Interdisciplinary Graduate Programs inequality in cellular phone access. Distinguished Achievement in Academia Tami Bond’s work to understand the worldwide effects of black carbon emissions on climate and human health has identified black Learn more about the honorees and the dinner at engr.uw.edu/da carbon as one of the most significant contributors to manmade climate change.